Thanos ongoing

I apologise if this has been mentioned already, here or elsewhere, but a friend of mine just pointed me to an article on the Mile High Comics forum regarding a potential Thanos ongoing series written and drawn by Jim Starlin. This may or may not thrill you depending on how impressed you've been with Infinity Abyss and The End. The general feeling on these groups seems to be negative but I, personally, loved Abyss, and am enjoying The End, as well, though perhaps not as much. In any case, I love Thanos. Starlin has made him into my favourite villain over the years, and if, like me, you're interested in his most recent trend towards being something almost approximating a good guy, this might interest you.
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi? ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=00...

-Justin

7

Interesting article. I'm glad I bought the End, even though it wasn't anything like Starlin's best work, if it caused him to get this series commissioned.

On the downside, one bit of this article caught my eye:

'Also to quash another rumor circulating the world wide web about the current Captain Marvel being killed for an all new 'return' of the original (deceased) Captain Marvel, Starlin commented, 'I just heard this morning that Marvel's plans to revive the original Capt. Marvel have been shelved. Don't know any details.'

So one might infer that the current Captain Marvel might be something that Marvel are actively contemplating getting rid of one way and another. Let's hope not.

Include me out, as Jack Warner would say.

Well, that's pretty much what motivates Darkseid from the start. Glad to see Thanos is getting there, after all these years.

Well, personally, I think you were missing my point. To my knowledge, Darkseid desires ultimate power because he is, essentially, an embodiment of all that's evil in the universe. The dark side. Could it get any more obvious? There's absolutely nothing within him capable of being redeemed. He's almost analogous to one of Marvel's cosmic abstractions. Power to Darkseid is a means to an end. An evil end.

For Thanos

Not quite. Check Peter's web site. It was a plot line he cooked up and then discarded...but not as a substitute for Genis.

The character lacks focus and is just going through the motions of planning, scheming, grabbing and falling flat on his face. Again, and again. I still can't imagine how an ongoing series with him as the lead character could be interesting without a complete redefinition of ol' Stone Jaw.

You know, I never read his recent appearance in Thor. Is that the one that was retconed by Starlin to have been an insane clone?

All villains have their good and bad days depending on the writers employing them. Pick your favourite villain and I'm sure I or somebody else could point out an instance in which he was portrayed either incorrectly or incompatibly with the growth that the character has shown over the years. I suppose it all comes down to a matter of personal preference, however.

You do make a good point about his motivations being moot since he was clearly willing to do evil things to get what he wanted. There was even a line in one of these issues of The End where Thanos says something like, 'I admit that I am evil.' I suppose I can't really argue with that. The point, however, isn't that he does evil things, but rather that he always has some interesting justification for it.

It's sort of like that line from Citizen Kane (which unfortunately I'm half blanking on): 'Charley wasn't a cruel man. He just did cruel things.'

Thanos is a supreme example of a sociopath. He essentially has no concept of right and wrong. All he cares about is will it be interesting to him. He's not evil. He just does evil things.

-Justin

I think Thanos knows the difference between right and wrong. I think he simply doesn't care. I'm willing to call a person like that evil

You know, Thanos acted somewhat heroic in his appearence in Peter David's Captain Marvel, (For those who didn't read it, he fought to protect Death from an evil Death God who killed a galaxy as a sacrifice to death and was spurred by Death because she's kind and doesn't want sacrifice, hence implying Thanos's methods to court Death were completly flawed all along) but my understanding is that Starlin retconned that stuff as being from an imposter. Now Starlin's decided to go the other way? That is soooo lame.

From what I've seen of Starlin's Thanos, I'm not impressed. All the stories seem to be 'collect the super cosmic thingee' type deals.